


Axyridis

by lizard_socks



Series: Rootstock [3]
Category: Blue Beetle (Comics), Green Lantern (Comics)
Genre: Activism, Far Future, Gen, Hero & Villain relationship, Self-Proclaimed Villain, Social Anxiety, Struggles with Empathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24598930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizard_socks/pseuds/lizard_socks
Summary: In the Earth year 2400, there are thousands of Green Lanterns, spread across the galaxy. As the Green Lantern of Iroshar, Tara Remellan feels a duty to provide some sort of leadership, but she has a hard time understanding the people she's supposed to protect.Right now, though, Tara's on a mission to track down her greatest adversary, the Iroshan-born human host of Khaji Da... so she can have a chat.
Series: Rootstock [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1778194





	Axyridis

_GRENADINE, BUGFRIEND, WHITE STRIPE, and GREEN LANTERN. The most powerful heroes on the planet, they come together as one to battle the most dangerous threats as the DEFENDERS SOCIETY OF IROSHAR._

"What's the deal with the 'of?'" Ashley handed the pamphlet back to Sheleth. A lanky young woman from Paramaribo, she was the only human being on the crew of the private Iroshan transport ship _Rootstock_. "Shouldn't it just be Iroshar Defenders Society? I know their language has noun descriptors. Not to mention these people all live in Blue River City, and Iroshar's a whole planet."

"What are you asking me for? You've lived in the Iroshar system longer than I have." Sheleth, the _Rootstock_ 's reptilian captain, stuck the pamphlet back in her pocket. "The only reason I brought you here is because I am 80 percent sure that our passenger, this 'Tara Remellan', is the Green Lantern. And I think you ought to be aware that something might be going on. What do you know about the Green Lantern Corps? Earth had one, didn't it?"

"Yeah. Your planet didn't?"

"First of all, Kashet is a post-apocalyptic ice planet with only seven million people. Second, green on green is not a particularly fashionable look."

"Well, the members of the Green Lantern Corps are almost always recruited from the sectors of space they're supposed to patrol," Ashley said. "In theory, they get their orders from the Corps and protect the local area from extraterrestrial threats. But in practice, especially in a highly populated areas like this, the Green Lanterns are given a lot of latitude and expected to work with local authorities."

"Or against," added Sheleth, "as the case may be. The Defenders Society has been very vocal in their support of the protestors."

"As they should be. Yeah, Iroshar's the zhr homeworld, but it's been majority-alien for decades now. Frankly, I'm surprised the Society is still all zhrs. Seems like a bad look."

==========

Tara threw off the covers on her bed. It was already a twelfth after midnight, at least on Blue River time, and the blue Iroshan zhr still couldn't get to sleep. She grabbed her power ring, holding it discreetly in her hand, and projected a holographic image onto the nightstand beside her.

"Don't they say that high-frequency light keeps you awake?" the image asked her. It was a green, glowing creature; cute and round, with big eyes and tall rabbit-like ears, like something from a kids' show.

"I swear, Paralari, every time I summon you..." Tara groaned and rolled over, her antennae almost scraping the headboard. "I am _not_ joining the Red Lantern Corps just to make you more visually appealing."

Paralari hopped off the table and onto the floor. "Hey, if I get snarky with you, you don't have anyone to blame but yourself. I'm just a figment of your imagination. Have been since you were six. It's just that now you get to use powerful alien technology to keep clinging to me. I mean, _I_ don't mind, but it's the middle of the night. This can't be healthy for you."

"Who else am I supposed to talk to?" Tara asked. "Every time I tell someone how I feel, it ends up hurting them."

The doorbell chime sounded. Tara sat up, sighed, and brought Paralari's light energy back into the ring before using a simple remote on her nightstand to open the door.

"Ms. Remellan." Sheleth stood in the corridor, still fully lit. "A matter that may involve you has come to my attention. I would like to ensure that you are aware of the rules, laws, and jurisdiction of this vessel."

"A 'vessel'?" Tara rubbed her eyes. "Fancy word for a ship like this."

"Well, it's a more proper term. I don't know why we call them ships, anyway. They can't go in water. Well, I guess some of them can, but it's like seaplanes, we should call them shipships or something- ah, never mind that." Sheleth entered the room and closed the door behind her; the lights turned on automatically. "The point is, I need to know if you have any other current identities besides the one listed on the passenger manifest."

"Yes," Tara said. "I'm Green Lantern. That's what you're asking about, isn't it?"

Sheleth nodded. If she was taken aback by Tara's forthright admission, she didn't show it. "You are aware, then, that any action taken on behalf of either the Green Lantern Corps or the Defender Society will be hotly contested in the Iroshan courts by the North Wind City chamber?"

"You're saying I have no jurisdiction here?"

"Essentially, yes."

"Good." Tara set her ring on the nightstand. "I'm counting on it."

==========

Leaf, a furred biped, leaned nervously against the wall of the security control room. "Well, Ashley," he said, "weren't you just saying how long it had been since you'd seen another human?"

"You were right, Leaf," said Ashley. "This stowaway _is_ human. But there's something else going on here."

"Well, yeah. They were obviously trying to get themselves thrown in the brig on purpose." Leaf gestured towards the video feed from the containment cell. Sheleth, having immediately noticed the stowaway upon the ship's departure from Iroshar, had suggested that the crew let it slide. But the unruly passenger had run through the corridors, knocking over everything in sight and causing a great deal of damage to the computer terminals in their path.

"I agree," Ashley said, "but it's not just that. Look at these scan results. That suit isn't like anything I've ever seen." She sat at a console and pulled up the results of the computer's automated security scan. A schematic of the outside of the suit appeared on the monitor. Seemingly an unimpressive red-and-black suit made of sheet metal covering everything but the human's face, the suit was actually hiding a wide array of incredibly powerful weaponry. "There's no way all this stuff can fit inside that suit," she said. "It has to be manufacturing it somehow."

"Any one of these could blast a hole in the hull from anywhere on the ship," said Leaf. "And we don't have anything that can stop it. Whoever this person is, they could kill everyone aboard if they wanted to... well, I guess Pyrite and I might survive. As long as we stay in one piece."

"I doubt we'll have to put the ship's mission in your hands," Ashley told him. "Our passenger doesn't seem to be in much of a hurry to destroy anything."

Leaf took a quick look at the monitor. The human was lying on their bed, lazily firing low-power energy shots at the energy barrier and trying to bounce them into a trash can across the cell.

"You saw how they were talking to themself earlier?" said Leaf. "I bet you the suit's alive."

"A living symbiotic suit?"

"Maybe not biological life. It could be AI, or some sort of magic. I did feel a bit of magical energy coming from them earlier. But I suppose that could have just been bounce-back from the suit scanning me."

"It's probably artificial, at least," Ashley said. "But why make such a thing? Why require a host at all? Unless... what if it's a parasite? Maybe it's _supposed_ to be able to control the host. Either it's not working right, or this host is just strong enough to overpower it."

"But not strong enough to get rid of it?" Leaf asked.

"Or maybe they just don't want to. I mean, look at how they treat the voice in their head. Like... a minor annoyance. I'd bet they're willing to put up with it if it means they have enough guns and lasers to be one of the most powerful people on the planet."

==========

Skylar pointed their arm cannon at the force field. "Do you wanna aim _at_ the barrier, or at the wall behind it?"

...

"We're not trying to escape," Skylar said. "This is a new kind of force field. We have an opportunity to test its limits."

...

"It's gonna take four hours to get to Arkan whether we're in this cell or not. Do you want to use that time training, or would you rather spend it running away from lowly corporate henchmen?"

...

"I'd think that after almost 500 years, you'd have given up trying to convince your hosts to kill every rando you meet." Skylar retracted the arm cannon back into their suit. "I can tell you're not serious about it. You know what? I don't care what you think. Maybe that's why we're such good friends."

Walking back to their bed, Skylar picked up a pillow that had fallen to the ground and flung it against the force field. It bounced off and hit the ground with a thud. Clearly, the alien scarab embedded in their body was not willing to lend its physical strength at the moment. Typical. Then again, at least the nagging voice in their head was a party of one. Skylar could tolerate one voice. It was the mob mentality on Iroshar that truly drove them crazy.

Thankfully, Skylar was far away from the suffocating urban landscape now. But the scarab, as it always did, had been scanning everyone on the ship, and it had detected one _very_ familiar face.

==========

Tara sat in a chair in the empty cafeteria, listening to a 300-year-old Iroshan song on the radio. Iroshar's first Green Lantern, she thought, must have listened to music like this. She tried to put herself in his state of mind. Although it was easy for Iroshans like herself to think of the present as a uniquely terrible time, the truth was that each generation had its own rude awakenings to problems that had never gone away. To neglect this, Tara thought, was to delude yourself into thinking the world was bound to become _worse_ as time went on, and deny yourself any sense of hope for improvement.

Then again, improvement could only come about through people who were passionate about making a change. And though Tara had no problem fighting powerful villains and rescuing innocent people with the power given to her by the Green Lantern Corps, she found it difficult to become invested in anything she couldn't accomplish on her own.

It was her greatest failing as a hero, she thought. She wondered if she even deserved to be one.

"Well, obviously you're not second-guessing whether you should be in the Corps," Paralari said. "The ring runs on will. No will, no powers, no me."

"Where did you come from?" asked Tara.

"If you had brought someone else to talk to, we wouldn't be having this problem."

Tara sighed. "You're right. It's not the Corps. It's the Defenders Society. They're the most famous and powerful heroes on the planet. With that comes a certain responsibility for leadership. Grenadine's never been worried about controversy when she stands up for what's right, and White Stripe knows how much leeway her popularity gets her. But for some reason I can't put myself out there like that."

"You can't even talk to the other heroes," Paralari said, "and yet you make an alibi and buy a ticket on a transport ship to Arkan just to talk to your greatest enemy?"

"I had no choice," said Tara. "Someday soon, we're gonna need their help."

==========

"Here's what I can tell you." Tara found herself on the bridge of the _Rootstock_ ; its captain apparently preferred to hold meetings in the open. "They go by the name Axyridis. They were born on Iroshar to human parents. At some point, they bonded with a symbiote named Khaji Da, who has joined with humans in the past, but seems to have an even older lineage. Axyridis presents themself as a villain, and they legitimately posses the power to destroy entire cities, but so far as I can tell, despite all their posturing, they've never killed anyone."

"And you came here because you knew they were coming?" Sheleth asked.

"I mean, I assumed they'd buy a ticket like everyone else. I would have said something if I'd have known they were going to wreck all your computer screens."

"Eh, those were the cheap kind anyway." Sheleth shrugged. "When it comes to tech, my boss prefers quantity over quality."

"The point is... Axyridis may not be a zhr, but they're still Iroshan, and they're probably one of the most powerful people on the planet. We don't want someone like that holding a grudge against us."

"What makes you think they would?"

Tara thought back to White Stripe and Grenadine trying to hash out a public statement in the team's not-so-secret bunker underneath the Blue River Bank tower, trying to strike a balance between seeming inauthentic or looking out of touch with the younger generation \- a balance they seemed to know was impossible. Tara knew she should have been involved in that meeting. But the need to phrase things in just such a way to convey a sense of righteous anger that wasn't really there - well, maybe for the others it was. But she didn't have what it took.

People sometimes noted that Tara never got angry, at anything or anyone. They said it like it was a compliment. But she thought of it as her greatest weakness, especially in moments like this.

==========

Tara stood, in full green-and-black uniform, outside Skylar's cell. She used her power ring to override the computer controls and drop the force field.

"I was _using_ that," mumbled a sleepy Skylar.

"Come on," Tara said. "You had to know I was coming. The scarab must have noticed me the minute I stepped on the ship."

"And you're only here to attack me where nobody will notice, aren't you? You know you can't beat me in a fight. Shoulda brought some friends."

"I've never beaten you in a battle, Skylar. Grenadine has. White Stripe has. Even Bugfriend has, and he's a _terrible_ fighter. But not me. You don't think I know that?"

"Then why come? With no backup from either the Society or your weird alien cosplay buddies? You don't even have jurisdiction in this region of space."

"That's exactly the point. I ought to be the least threatening to you I've ever been."

"Oh god. You want to _talk._ " Skylar got up and began to walk past Tara towards the door.

"You always leave when you can't blow things up anymore," Tara said. "Just like at Teroug."

Skylar turned around. "How'd you know about _that_?"

"You don't think I read your blog?"

"I deleted that post three years ago."

"I _remember_ things, Skylar. Besides, you know everything about me."

"You're not hard to figure out," Skylar said. "You're a follower, not a leader. You never challenge your superiors, or anybody else, for that matter. Whenever you get the opportunity to make a statement for yourself, you chicken out."

The two of them stood still, looking into each others' eyes.

"Computer," said Skylar, "define chick-"

"I know what 'chicken out' means," Tara said. "There have been humans in the Green Lantern Corps for hundreds of years. Their expressions are well known throughout the galaxy."

"And _they_ take on leadership roles, whereas _you_ just try to keep your head above water."

"What do you want me to do?" Tara asked. "When I say something, people criticize me. When I don't, they call me a coward."

"Say whatever you want, Tara! But say it in your own damn words! Whenever the Society issues some fancy 'statement', does it _ever_ seem like something you'd say to me during one of our big fights? Of course not! I mean, I'm sure White Stripe has a team of speechwriters on hand in every battle zone the way _she_ talks, but you're not that kind of person, and to be frank, I expected more from you."

"...What? And then you'll _like_ me?"

"Why should you care? Besides, I don't like _anyone_." Skylar walked back into the cell and sat down on the bed, looking at their feet. "There are two kinds of people in this world. The kind I agree with, and the kind I can get along with. And neither of them gives a crap about what I have to say."

"You know, some people think you're some sort of counter-revolutionary." Tara used her ring to create a simple green chair on the opposite wall of the cell, and sat down in it. "They think you're trying to maintain the status quo. But if that's _really_ what you wanted, you wouldn't think of yourself as a bad guy, would you?"

"Well, why _do_ you think I do it?"

"I think you've conceded to yourself that these activists - many of them your age, I might add - are on the right side of history. And yet you can't bring yourself to join them. Maybe the only way to justify that to yourself is to paint yourself as the villain."

"I tried, Tara. Honest to god, when I went to college on Earth... I thought they would think like me, act like me. I thought I was finally getting away from the Iroshan groupthink. But humans are no different. They have their own dogma, and they'll push it on you every chance they get. If _those_ are the good guys, where does that leave me?"

"You're fooling yourself, Skylar. You're not a villain. I think the scarab is proof enough of that."

"What's that supposed to mean? They were made to _take over planets_."

"And maybe some of them are still trying to do just that. Not yours. We both know where it came from. We both know the men it bonded with 400 years ago. I think that legacy speaks for itself."

==========

Skylar looked out at the brightly lit nighttime streets of Arkan's capital city, at the planet's north pole. Actually arriving at the intended destination hadn't been their original plan, but the important thing was to get off Iroshar and find some other Alliance planet to live on.

Still, even here, something was nagging at them. They couldn't tell if it was their conscience, or the magic alien scarab fused to their spine. Hard to tell them apart sometimes. But, if Skylar was being completely honest with themself, they knew Tara was right about Khaji Da, and the heroes on Earth who had been its original partners centuries ago.

That didn't mean they were about to take the names of those heroes for their own, though. There was no way they were going to let themselves get mixed up with anyone else. Axyridis was a one-person, one-bug operation, and if they were going to get involved, they'd do it their way.


End file.
